Oil Engines. 



459 



cultural Motors, Ltd.," in the form of a light tractor capable of 

 hauling a light scarifier or a double-furrow plough, a sheaf- 

 binding reaper, or driving a threshing machine. 



Mr. John Scott, of Edinburgh, has also applied petrol motors 

 to cultivators and drills. 



Sufficient experience has not, however, been yet obtained to 

 make it possible to speak positively of the economic value of 

 the oil engine or spirit motor for field work. Experience in the 

 past with steam engines for field tractor purposes does not 

 necessarily apply to the oil motor tractor and new conditions 

 and modes of working that may commend themselves. The 

 failure of the steam engine is not necessarily indicative. It 

 may be even yet that the oil engine of, say, 15 b.h.p., may 

 perform, by the simple haulage of gang ploughs, that which 

 the steam tractor failed to do ; or may again open the way 

 to the co-operation of two or more farmers of a district for 

 the employment of the windlass and self-moving anchor andi 

 light ploughs — light as compared with the six- furrow ploughs of 

 the steam system. The oil engine with electric ignition may 

 pave the way for doing other field work by motor, but even at 

 this day this is a matter for experiment, and if some of the well- 

 to-do estate owners who can afford to experiment would do 

 this, as others have developed the motor carriage by buying 

 high-price cars, they would be doing something of interest to 

 themselves and of value to everyone. 



They may feel encouraged by that which has already been 

 done by the Ivel and by the Drake & Fletcher motor, the 

 former of which was last month awarded a gold medal by the 

 Upton-by-Chester Ploughing Association for work done during 

 a competition, an award which confirms the opinion formed by 

 other associations and observers, including the North Kent 

 Agricultural Association. 



The Ivel tractor weighs only about 28 cwt. It is an outcome 

 of the motor car, and is fitted with a petroleum spirit motor of 

 about 14 h.p. It is driven and steered by one man, and, when 

 ploughing, one man is required on the plough. At Upton-by- 

 Chester its speed was about three miles per hour with a double 

 furrow plough working six inches deep. If the performances 

 in ploughing can be repeated on heavy land in bad condition at 



